The weather is dry, but a little cool this morning, but it’s a nice morning. We had our usual breakfast in the room. I’m so glad we got the room with a microwave and mini-fridge! It’s saving us money on meals and it’s so nice to have things handy and not have to go out for every little thing.
We started the day by going uptown to visit my friend Erin and her 3 month old daughter, Kitty. Jason was at work, but it was great to see the girls!! Erin is one of the sweetest people I know and I’m so thrilled she’s a momma. She is loving it, even through the hard ‘first-time parent’ moments. Kitty is precious. It’s difficult and expensive to raise a child in NYC. Erin is a stay-at-home mom and thankful that God has worked that out for them, even with the sacrifices necessary to do so in NYC.
After a few hours with Erin and Kitty, we took off for our excursion to find some souvenirs and cannolis. We were at 145th street, so we took the subway to lower Manhattan, planning on going to Chinatown and Little Italy. I missed our stop and we ended up riding into Brooklyn. But it was a fun experience for Sandy, since we came up above ground and rode along the bottom of a bridge over the East River, then back underground in Brooklyn. We switched trains and got off back in Lower Manhattan near the Financial District. We walked a bit and saw some interesting things along the way. It was a pretty morning.
We stopped at a few shops in Chinatown and got some tshirts and some candy with Chinese writing on it for Sandy’s grandkids. Then we walked to Littly Italy, where the San Generro festival was still going on. We stopped in at a restaurant (one of many that had tables set up outside) and had some fresh made ravioli. It wasn’t a very big portion, but it was good. And this way we would have room for our newfound cannolis later in the afternoon.
We grabbed a train to the East Village and walked to Venieros, which is supposed to have the best cannolis (according to many friends). It was a neat old bakery and we loved looking at all the yummy choices. We got some mini cannolis and I got a delicious little tart with Bavarian cream. It was about the size of a golf ball and expensive, but looked good!
We took a crosstown bus and connected to one going uptown. It was very slow going for that time of day, with school letting out and all. Sandy got the taste of getting around parts of the city where the tourists are not hanging out. She was still trying to make out in her mind where we were all the time, and was usually way off base. We’ll study a map later on.
We were tired when we got back to the hotel. We started packing and then rested a little bit. Then we walked down to visit my friend Carol again and picked up some Bible Study cds that she wanted me to have. She writes and composes music, so she played one of her songs for us from her computer contraption. It was really pretty. There was a copy of the music sheets sitting on the coffee table and I took a picture of the title and the words printed on the top right that said “music and lyrics by Carol Jay”. I thought that was pretty cool. We said bye to Carol and gave her some of the food stuff that we had left over from our room.
We walked back up toward our hotel and stopped for a couple more souvenirs and then stopped at Patzeria restaurant near our hotel for a very delicious Italian dinner. I had fresh spaghetti and meatballs and Sandy had tortelini. I ate every bite of my dinner and Sandy took some of her tortellini to the hotel for breakfast. The restaurant was comfy and the staff was excellent. The food was perfect and I was a happy camper. It was a perfect last meal in NYC for us!
We finished packing and watched tv for awhile. We didn’t have to get up early any day of our vacation and it was so nice to go to bed when we felt like it and just be relaxed.
I couldn’t believe that our week was up. We did almost everything on our list and I got to see almost everyone that I was hopping to see. Sandy got to get away from cooking, cleaning, laundry and babysitting for a week. It has been a great vacation. God truly blessed us!
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